Internationalization: a case study on the role of knowledge

This paper aims to contribute to internationalization literature by finding out how CAC (Cooperativa Agricola Campo: an Italian cooperative producing and distributing bio-products) acquired foreign market knowledge and how this affected its internationalization. It shows that in the past, CAC did not have much knowledge on the markets it entered. It followed mostly effectual decision-making logic: in terms of finding customers, it depended considerably on its network relationships (that were mostly useful for its internationalization), but also found several new partners at trade fairs and via unsolicited export orders. In more recent years, CAC’s managers have tried to acquire more foreign market knowledge and their internationalization activities have become somewhat more systematic. Still, entries “by chance” have not stopped completely